


Like I’m Passing Through a Lesson Learnt in Time

by UnlockTheRainbow



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hopeful Ending, I Don't Even Know, POV Second Person, a lot is left for your interpretation, carmilla second person pov, human/vampire carmilla? you can decide lmao, idk man hope you give it a shot, it's short just read it maybe if you like angst bc that's just what it is, sorta?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27206677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnlockTheRainbow/pseuds/UnlockTheRainbow
Summary: She was everything that you weren’t. Optimistic and brave. Brilliant and naïve. Shining with a happy glow that almost hurt your eyes if you laid them upon her for a moment too long. It didn’t stop you from staring at her.You were everything that she wasn’t. Selfish and shallow. Cynical and careless. Filled with despair that threatened to drag you under and keep you there until you drowned.- OR -Neither of them know how emotions work but they deal.It's just angst. That's it.
Relationships: Laura Hollis/Carmilla Karnstein
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Like I’m Passing Through a Lesson Learnt in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Heeyy,
> 
> As I always do in exam periods, I rewatched Carmilla for the 800th time. Only this time I blinked and then there was this fic? I really don't know what to think of it, I'm proud of it and also very confused by it. So I hope you like it! I also never write in the 2nd person and their names aren't even mentioned. But it has all the Carmilla angsty season 2 vibes. Idk man I hope you give it a shot and you like it too in the process.
> 
> I know this is like y e a r s after it all aired but I've never felt the urge to write for them before and now i suddenly did so idk maybe some of you still read abt these two gays. I hope so.
> 
> I wasn't certain about the rating, I felt it was too dark for general but there aren't any mature themes so I think the T rating suffices. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think! :)
> 
> Oh and the title is from 'Pretty Lady' by Tash Sultana.

She was everything that you weren’t. Optimistic and brave. Brilliant and naïve. Shining with a happy glow that almost hurt your eyes if you laid them upon her for a moment too long. It didn’t stop you from staring at her. She was filled with a hope that was once familiar to you, but had long flown away with every other good thing in your life. It dared attempt to break down your walls and you had to fight with every ounce of self-restraint to not let them fall.

You were everything that she wasn’t. Selfish and shallow. Cynical and careless. Filled with despair that threatened to drag you under and keep you there until you drowned. You were so afraid of dragging her with you. You were exhausted with everyone and everything in your life. She tried desperately to let you see the good in the world and the good in yourself and you tried desperately to make her see how horrible you really were. If you had any flicker of light in you, you would have stayed away from her. You weren’t even strong enough for that. You liked to blame it all on your tragic past, but you knew that was just a lie. A lie to cover up the fact that you are terrible, rotten down to your core.

You tried to protect her from you. You tried to protect yourself from her. Both attempts futile. You were like the moon chasing the sun through the sky, begging her to let you catch up with her, while simultaneously pushing her away to make room for the dark. An endless, vicious circle that was awful for the both of you. You didn’t know how to break it. Didn’t know if you wanted to.

She told you time and time again that she wanted this, wanted you. You told her time and time again that she was just a foolish girl who didn’t know what she was talking about. It was cruel of you. Keeping her close, yet far away. Not pushing hard enough to make her leave, but never letting her get close enough to stay. You didn’t give her a choice, leaving her suspended at arm’s length. Stretched between what she wanted and what she needed. Not giving her either. Not knowing how to.

You knew it wasn’t safe, this dark, dangerous dance. You knew it would end with her stomping on what was left of your crumpled heart and leaving you to bleed out alone. Or with you swallowing all her light with your suffocating darkness until all that was left of her was twisted and wrong. Probably both.

You wondered why she didn’t save herself from you. Wondered what made her so desperate for affection that she thought you were better than being alone. You asked her once, screamed in her face why she didn’t just leave, why she insisted on caring for you, loving you. You sharpened your words into knives and stabbed her with them, twisting truths and leaving behind gaping wounds that never quite healed entirely. She screamed right back, accusing you of things you had and things you hadn’t done. Sobbing as she bared her bleeding heart, begging you to take it. Of course you didn’t. You couldn’t.

You apologized. You always did. Mumbling sweet somethings and somedays, making her believe that you could change, you would change. Promising you would try. You did try, for a few days at least. You let your walls down, just a tad, let her see the swirling nothingness behind. Hoping it would scare her off. It didn’t. It intrigued her, like she couldn’t wait to try. Try and fix it, fix you. You’d never let her get that far, slamming the ironclad stones back into place before her hope could touch you. That same dance. Pulling her in enough to keep her from running, yet pushing her away when it got too real. You wanted to stop. You thought. Maybe next time. You never did.

Watching her slowly lose that hope she held for a better world, a better you, was the most painful thing you had ever endured. You thought this would be the end of it. She would finally realise that you would never be worth it. She could still save herself. But she didn’t leave. She stayed and made you watch as the place where her light had been filled with disappointment and regret. You were sure she did it to torture you, punish you for not letting her go and not letting her in. You knew you deserved it. So you let her.

She became a shell of who she once was. You didn’t know how to fix it. Didn’t know where to start. Didn’t know when you realised you wanted to. So you went back to what you knew. You fought her, thinking the anger might jar her back into who she was before. Before everything. Before you.

You were fighting almost the entire time. Screeching and fuming at each other. Tearing out each other’s hearts, stealing the breath from each other’s lungs, neither of you being able to stop. Too proud. Too foolish. Too used to the world’s wicked ways. Too immature to deal with them.

She became as callous as you. Flinging back insults and cynical remarks with a menace you thought she didn’t possess. It filled your lungs with ice, like you’d been running in the cold winter air. Your heart ached as you understood the reality of what you had done to her. She knew it too. She smiled as you gasped for air, trying to regain the upper hand. She knew she had won. You knew she had always been winning.

You were silent after that and so was she. A unanimous decision to leave each other be. Leave each other to stew in regret. Words unsaid. Words said too much. Wounds left to fester. It was the first thing you had agreed on in a long time. You almost thought it to be comical. You didn’t know if it was a reprieve from the fighting or if it was worse. At least she had cared. Cared enough to spare you words. Breath. Anything.

Your dance continued in silence, only this time there was no arm’s length. You had screamed your ugly truths at her. You were all tangled up in her. Twisted in ways you didn’t think could hold for long. Strangled and suffocated and yet so safe.

She knew it too. That you had finally let her in. Let her see. You were grateful she didn’t have the energy to try and fix you. Didn’t have the energy to try and be that optimistic hopeful girl she once was. You could see it in the sluggish movements, once vibrant and fluttering, now slow and tired. You saw it in her empty eyes, once filled with love and hope, now regarding you void from any emotion. You didn’t even see disappointment. Just vast nothingness.

It scared you. It terrified you. You had beaten her down so much and so often that she had just given up. You knew it was your fault and you welcomed the guilt and the sorrow. You couldn’t glance at her for longer than a moment, the dread instantly filling you to the brim when you did. You had gotten your wish. You let her in and her hope didn’t touch you. Couldn’t touch you. There was none left.

You were the first to reach out again. Tentatively. As soft and silent as you could muster, almost praying for her not to notice. You didn’t know why you did it. Didn’t know what you wanted to accomplish with it. You only knew that you couldn’t handle the way she looked at you without seeing you. Without even acknowledging you.

You weren’t met with hostility and so you continued. Tiny gestures that half of you wanted to go unnoticed. The other half was waiting for her to reject them. Reject you. She had to reject you at some point. But she didn’t. She knew you better than anyone else. She noticed and she didn’t reject you. She didn’t react at first, probably thinking it was just another one of your attempts to change. Another one of your failures. It gutted you that she was so used to you disappointing her that she didn’t expect anything else. How could she. It was all you’d ever done.

But you were determined. Something changed. Years too late something broke and clicked simultaneously inside of you. You didn’t dare examine it too closely. Afraid that if you looked at it for too long, it would dissipate.

It didn’t. It lasted. You kept at it and it started to not take up as much energy. Trying. It started to come naturally. You told her things you had never told her before. You let her see parts of you that you didn’t think would ever see the light of day. You knew she listened. You knew she looked. Even if she didn’t admit it. Even if she didn’t say anything back. But she noticed. You knew she noticed.

When she looked at you instead of through you for the first time in forever it nearly shattered her. All of her messy hopes came tumbling out and she uttered your name in a broken whisper. You hated yourself for reducing her to this. You hated her for making you care. You felt that old fear settle on you like a heavy blanket and you nearly let out a relieved sigh. The urge to push her away again was strong and this time you had to fight with everything you had to keep your walls down. As much as you ached for that familiar gut-wrenching despair that had always comforted you, you didn’t want it anymore. Didn’t need it anymore. You hoped.

She was angry. Furious. How dare you decide to become better right when she didn’t want you to anymore. She laughed at the irony. Scoffed at the way the tables turned. Yelled at you for picking up a different book right when you were on the same page. You let her rage. You couldn’t blame her. It hurt but you let yourself feel it. Needed to feel it. You didn’t yell back, didn’t try to convince her of your epiphany. Didn’t bother with the whispers of promised change. You knew you had abused that trust too often.

You preferred the anger to the apathy that had hung around her like a grey cloud. Like a thick November mist that clung to everything and chilled to the bone. You hadn’t realised how cold you were until she burned you with her wrath. But you preferred this, so you let her anger flare and fume until it simmered down to a glowing ember. You were grateful when it subsided, yet aching for something else. Feeling like you made progress, yet terrified of what would happen now. You didn’t know what to do, afraid even the slightest mishap would make that ember extinguish again in a whisper of what could have been.

It didn’t. The simmering ember ignited a flame inside of her. This time not of anger. She started to tell you things again. Started to let you back in. You continued to tell her things. Not shutting her out. She asked questions. Listened attentively. It was like discovering each other for the first time all over again. Her messy hopes grew. You realised you had messy hopes too. You didn’t just utter sweet somethings and somedays to her, you uttered them to yourself.

You had almost forgotten what her laugh sounded like when it wasn’t twisted with menace. The first time you heard it, it felt like letting out a breath you didn’t realise you had been holding. It shattered you and put you back together at the same time. It made you dare to believe. Believe she was going to be okay again. Believe you were going to be okay. For the first time you trusted her when she told you that she wanted you. 

She was still mostly what you weren’t and you were still mostly what she wasn’t. But she had gained a few edges and you had lost some. Softened. You were still darker than she could ever be but you showed it to her. And she understood. She was still brighter than you could ever handle but it didn’t burn as much. And you let it warm you. You were still tangled and twisted up into each other but now it took your breath away differently. It wasn’t strangled and suffocated. It was just safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think!
> 
> My tumblr is [UnlockTheRainbow](https://unlocktherainbow.tumblr.com/)


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